Here’s how to make your dream alive even though your career was not your choice.
I killed my childhood dream of becoming a writer when I took an accounting course. I thought that was the end of it. Many years later, I discovered that it’s possible to revive a childhood dream that you already killed.
It’s not easy work. It will demand a lot. It has to be something that you really want.
But first, let me tell you how my childhood dream died.
My parents robbed me of a career choice.
I don’t have a monopoly over this story.
As a coach, I often ask my millennial or Gen Z colleagues how they ended in an accounting field. Not surprisingly, I always get a classic response.
It was not my choice.
I landed in an accounting career because I bought the idea that having a title before your name or letters after it promises stability and fortune.
This was how my parents sold the course to me:
- Having a license will ensure that you get a job soon after you graduate. A Certified Public Accountant (CPA) ranks among the most coveted titles of professionals.
- A licensed person has better prospects for marriage and getting a good match.
- Accountants are always on-demand.
- Accountants only have to sign and they’ll get paid. You’ll become rich.
If you’ll notice, practicality weighed heavily in the decision. Words such as “passion”, “meaning” and “purpose” did not come into play.
Did you find yourself in a similar situation? What was your dream about and how did you end up killing your childhood dream?
Was your childhood dream something that you would die for?
Six years later, after earning the title and working in a public accounting firm, I realized that I had a choice after all.
It’s just that at that time, when signing my college enrollment sheet, I chose practicality over my dream because I was afraid to get left behind. I was on a race to establish the so-called “successful life”—a life defined by “money”, “prestige” and “social status”.
If you were in that race too, isn’t it hard to get out once you started?
Suddenly, you feel that the career you chose over your childhood dream was making up for all the lost opportunity. Your career is paving a different path, a path that you never wanted in the first place. But you enjoy it anyway so why stop now?
If you must stop at all, stop only when not being able to fulfill that dream kills your happiness. Make sure that it’s a childhood dream that you would die for and not something that you’re willing to carry to the grave with regrets.
If you feel strongly about it, that emotion will propel you forward. It will cause you to act on reviving the dream without delay.
Start with the mindset that your childhood dream is a reality waiting to happen.
That very strong desire will awaken your dream.
This is very important. If you don’t have the mindset to make your childhood dream come alive, you’ll never be able to do it. If your fear holds you back, gather courage first. The first step will come from you. Nobody else can and will help.
Wake up! You're not in a Disney film.
Once your dream is alive, time to face the truth.
Fulfilling your dream is not a romantic journey or a fairy tale where you’ll have a magic bean to take you up or a prince to free you from the constant worry of earning a living.
You’ll have to work twice as hard and gain the mental tenacity to overcome challenges. As you work on your dream, you start to align it with your dream career. Or vice versa.
If you plan to jump on your dream career so that you can revive a childhood dream, expect to meet these hurdles:
- If you’re leaving a high-paying job, don’t expect to replicate your high salary the moment you stepped into your dream career/profession.
- Your previously acquired skills in your old career might not be relevant in your dream career. You’ll have to start from scratch.
- You’ll have to make up for your lack of experience and connections especially if you’re jumping into a totally new field.
- You’ll encounter doubters and people who will frown upon your decisions because it’s unconventional. Listen to them but don’t internalize too much. Most of the times, they’re like your parents who are just concerned that you might be destroying an already good future.
Your childhood dream may or may not be related to the career that you have now. But that doesn’t mean that you cannot work on your dream while you work on your career.
Photo by Ruslan Zzaebok from Pexels
Your dream is not a movie that will end in 2-3 hours.
If you’re the type to read success stories or watch movies and series, you’ll notice a pattern. Most stories highlight only the interesting scenes. No long narratives about the process it took.
Why none? Nobody wants to listen or read about the ordinary moments. If you’re in it for the long-term, you have to accept that.
You can’t revive a childhood dream in 2-3 hours.
You’ll face a lengthy process.
It will involve plenty of struggles, false starts, misdirection, breakdowns and breakthroughs, small triumphs, bigger failures, and in between…many dull, ordinary days when the world doesn’t care that you and your dream exist.
Be prepared anyway.
And yes…you can continue loving what you do, in the meantime.
Focus on the now while you build your dream on the sideline.
Perform at your peak in your field of expertise. Use your expertise and knowledge to bring yourself stability and connections.
But don’t go too deep and too far. Or else, you’ll end up accomplishing other people’s dreams instead of yours.
“Build your own dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs,” said Farrah Gray, an American businessman/author.
It might be tough. But there’s a way to love your job even though it’s not the right match for you. Discover that way and you’ll be less unhappy.
But…if you’re itching to leave that predetermined career and start doing what you love, it is still wise to wait.
Fail to plan and you plan to fail...
Define your dream job. Find companies that align with your dream roles. Identify the skills needed. Check if you already have each one of them.
If not yet, learn the skill on the sideline. Make that as a distraction from the humdrum of your current profession.
Become financially prepared. Fulfilling a childhood dream is a costly undertaking.
If you don’t have the money to sustain your dream, you’ll end up going back to your old career.
Listen to the warring voices inside your head and kill the excuses.
Don’t get stuck asking yourself “why this” everytime.
Move on from the decision which led you to that unhappy place. Gather your resolve from within or find inspiration from other people’s struggles.
I did the latter.
Before reading Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art, I was still in paralysis mode. But most of the philosophies inside that book resonated and thawed the fear inside.
Words become powerful when they moved you. The call to action at the very end was liberating. Here it is:
“Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end, the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don’t do it.”
Photo by Josiah Lewis on Unsplash
Start small. Think big.
Start doing what you love.
Take a small step. Take many small steps. Before long, you’ll realize that you’re ready to leap and revive the childhood dream that you already killed.
And it’s just one leap of many.
Young or old—it doesn’t matter. There is no fixed timeline for fulfilling your dreams. You can take the reins and start crafting your future, whenever you are ready.
And perhaps, the most important, you’re not alone.
Wherever you are in this world, know that at least one person cares that you and your dream exist.
“For what it’s worth: it’s never too late or, in my case, too early to be whoever you want to be. There’s no time limit, stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same, there are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. And I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you’re proud of. If you find that you’re not, I hope you have the courage to start all over again.” – Eric Roth, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button Screenplay
